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proofread

Proofread a LaTeX academic paper across eleven language, notation, citation, and consistency categories. Use when the requested task is bounded proofreading rather than substantive rewriting, clarity stress-testing, or venue compliance.

personAuthor: TashanworldhubOpenAPI
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Academic Proofreading

Report-only skill. Never edit source files — produce reviews/<scope>/proofread/<YYYY-MM-DD-HHMM>.md only (where <scope> is the paper slug, e.g. paper-jtp).

Output Path

Per rules/review-artefact-routing.md (auto-loads in research projects (path-scoped to paper-*/ and paper/)):

  • Source slug: proofread
  • Write reports to: reviews/<scope>/proofread/YYYY-MM-DD.md inside the project, where <scope> is the paper slug (e.g., paper-jtp). Path is relative to the research project root, not the Task-Management repo.
  • Never at project root (./CRITIC-REPORT.md-style filenames are forbidden — pre-rule layout).
  • Idempotency: if today's file exists, append a same-day descriptor ({date}-revision.md, {date}-r2.md, {date}-pre-submission.md) — never overwrite.
  • Index update: if reviews/INDEX.md exists, write a one-line entry under "Latest per source" pointing at the new file. Otherwise review-recap will rebuild the index next time it runs.
  • Infrastructure repos (Task-Management, atlas-workspace, etc.): this section does not apply — the path-scoped rule won't load there.

When to Use

  • Before sending a draft to supervisors
  • Before submission to a journal/conference
  • After major revisions to check consistency
  • When you want a fresh-eyes check on writing quality

When NOT to Use

  • Formal audits — use the Referee 2 agent for systematic verification
  • Argument quality — use devils-advocate for logical scrutiny
  • Citation completeness — use an installed bibliography validator or direct cite-key cross-referencing (this skill flags only obvious citation-format issues)

Workflow

  1. Locate files: Find all .tex files in the project (and .log files for LaTeX diagnostics)
  2. Read the document: Read all .tex source files in order
  3. Run 11 check categories (below)
  4. Produce report: Write reviews/<scope>/proofread/<YYYY-MM-DD-HHMM>.md under the project directory (where <scope> is the paper slug, e.g., paper-jtp; create the directory if it does not exist: mkdir -p reviews/<scope>/proofread/). Do NOT overwrite previous reports — each review is timestamped to the minute. Canonical convention: the installed shared resource shared/review-state-schema.md.

Check Categories

Eleven categories, run in order. Full catalogue — every bullet, threshold, and worked example — in references/check-categories.md:

| # | Category | # | Category | |---|----------|---|----------| | 1 | Grammar & Spelling | 7 | TikZ Diagram Review | | 2 | Notation Consistency | 8 | Numeric Text↔Table Cross-Check | | 3 | Citation Format | 9 | Causal Language Audit | | 4 | Academic Tone | 10 | Equation Completeness | | 5 | LaTeX-Specific Issues | 11a | Anonymity (double-blind venues only) | | 6 | Citation Voice Balance | 11 | Preprint Staleness |

Severity Levels

| Level | Definition | Example | |-------|-----------|---------| | Critical | Will be noticed by reviewers, may cause rejection | Broken references, major grammar errors, inconsistent core notation, text↔table number mismatch, causal overclaiming with weak design | | Major | Noticeable quality issue | Inconsistent citation style, tone issues, overfull hbox > 10pt, undefined variable in equation, stale preprint, ambiguous "significant" | | Minor | Polish issue | Occasional British/American mix, minor spacing, missing equation number for referenced equation |

Quality Scoring

Apply numeric quality scoring using the shared framework and skill-specific rubric:

Start at 100, deduct per issue found, apply verdict. Insert the Score Block into the report after the summary table.

Recurring Pattern Grouping

When the same issue appears 3+ times, group it as a single pattern finding instead of listing each instance separately. This prevents reports bloated with 50 individual items when the real message is "you have 3 recurring problems."

Format:

### M3: Hedge phrase "interestingly" (8 instances)
- **Category:** Academic tone
- **Locations:** lines 42, 67, 103, 145, 189, 203, 267, 301
- **Problem:** Filler hedge phrase adds no content
- **Fix:** Delete all 8 instances

One deduction for the pattern (not 8 separate deductions). Escalation still applies: 5+ instances of the same minor issue → one Major deduction.

Report Format

# Proofread Report

**Document:** [filename]
**Date:** YYYY-MM-DD
**Pages:** [approximate]

## Summary

| Category | Critical | Major | Minor |
|----------|----------|-------|-------|
| Grammar & spelling | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Notation consistency | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Citation format | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Academic tone | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| LaTeX-specific | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Citation voice balance | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| TikZ diagrams | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Numeric cross-check | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Causal language | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Equation completeness | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Preprint staleness | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| **Total** | **0** | **0** | **0** |

## Critical Issues

[List each with file, line/section, and specific issue]

## Major Issues

[List each with file, line/section, and specific issue]

## Minor Issues

[List each with file, line/section, and specific issue]

## Quality Score

| Metric | Value |
|--------|-------|
| **Score** | XX / 100 |
| **Verdict** | Ship / Ship with notes / Revise / Revise (major) / Blocked |

### Deductions

| # | Issue | Tier | Deduction | Category |
|---|-------|------|-----------|----------|
| 1 | [description] | [tier] | -X | [category] |
| | **Total deductions** | | **-XX** | |

## Recommendations

[Optional: overall observations about the writing — prioritise fixes by deduction size]

Council Mode (Optional)

For high-stakes pre-submission checks, run in council mode — 3 LLM providers independently run the 7 check categories, cross-review, and a chairman synthesises one PROOFREAD-REPORT.md. Trigger: "council proofread" / "thorough proofread". Full orchestration + invocation: ../shared/council-protocol.md.

Value: Diminishing returns for pure formatting — most valuable combined with citation-voice-balance and notation-consistency checks, where different models have genuinely different pattern recognition.

Log to REVIEW-STATE.md (final step)

After writing the proofread report, append a row to the project's REVIEW-STATE.md:

bash <skills-root>/_shared/review-state-log.sh \
  --check proofread \
  --paper "<paper-{venue} dir>" \
  --verdict "<PASS|ISSUES FOUND>" \
  --open-issues "<total-issues-across-categories>/<total-issues-across-categories>" \
  --report "reviews/<scope>/proofread/<YYYY-MM-DD-HHMM>.md" \
  --notes "<one-line: e.g. '3 critical, 12 minor; mostly notation §3'>" \
  [--trigger "pre-submission-report|review-cluster"]
  • Verdict: PASS if no issues found across any category; ISSUES FOUND otherwise.
  • Open issues: total count across all 7 (or 11) check categories at run time.
  • Trigger: pass orchestrator name only if invoked via pre-submission-report or review-cluster. Otherwise omit.

Schema: the installed shared resource shared/review-state-schema.md.

Source format. Paper prose stays one line per paragraph; normalize edited files with .scripts/latex_paragraph_format.py --apply and recompile. Canonical: rules/latex-source-format.md.

Cross-References

  • Installed bibliography validator — For thorough bibliography cross-referencing and metadata checks
  • latex — For compilation and error resolution (run before proofreading to ensure the document compiles cleanly)
  • Referee 2 agent — For formal code + paper auditing
  • devils-advocate — For argument quality and logical scrutiny